Memes tend to have a short life, vanishing from social media and small talk mere days after they go viral.
Not the case with pizza rat, which may endure for years as a tattoo on the hairy calf of a customer inked at the Williamsburg parlor Magic Cobra Tattoo Society.
Last Friday, a native New Yorker requested the tattoo depicting the notorious rodent clutching his hard-won slice from artist Kati Vaughn, she told DNAinfo.
“He’s a previous client of mine who saw the pizza rat and got really excited about it," she said of her customer, a picture of whose body art surfaced on Reddit.
Vaughn, 28, inked the image she sketched for him in roughly an hour-and-a-half, topping what appeared as a cheese slice in the viral video with pepperoni for "a little texture."
This isn't the first time a native New Yorker asked Vaughn for a tattoo of a local pest gripping food in its claws.
The artist, who specializes in custom likenesses of nude women, drawing on vintage American pornography and Japanese erotic paintings and prints as inspiration, was asked by one client, then living in California, for a tattoo of a pigeon clutching a taco and a slice of pizza.
"I think it would be funny to do a whole series of flash where it’s like a rat and a hot dog, or a pigeon and a rat," said Vaughn, who lives in Bushwick.
So how much will a token of admiration for the enterprising rat who embodies hustling New Yorkers everywhere set you back? Vaughn's client paid $250, but the cost "really depends on the size and placement of the tattoo," she said.
"I can definitely make a more intricate version of that. I can make a simpler version of it."
With the Pizza Rat video under copyright by the LA-based viral video outfit Jukin Media, which acquired rights not long after comedian Matt Little posted it, will more New Yorkers come to Magic Cobra for a pizza rat they can truly call their own?
"Let's hope so," Vaughn said. "Would you like a pizza rat tattoo, too?"
We politely declined.
